missdissent.livejournal.comDoes My Bomb Look Big In This? — LiveJournal

? ? LiveJournal Find more Communities RSS Reader Shop Help Log in Log in Join free Join English (en) English (en) Русский (ru) Українська (uk) Français (fr) Português (pt) español (es) Deutsch (de) Italiano (it) Беларуская (be) missdissent —no suspend reasonReadability More missdissent Archive Photos Video Readability Log in No account? Create an account Remember me Forgot password Log in Log in QR code No account? Create an account By logging in to LiveJournal using a third-party service you accept LiveJournal’s User agreement Recent Entries Archive Friends Profile Memories Does My Bomb Look Big In This? Saving the world, one meal at a time. Previous 10 2020 - The Best of Does My Bomb Look Big In This? Dec. 22nd, 2020 at 11:16 AM missdissent With 2020 changing the way we work, live and play, it of course had an impact on the way we eat. The depression era bread queue made a resurgence at popular sourdough bakeries, like my local, Penny Fours , as well as at restaurants like Café Paci , who made an agile pivot to selling their wonderful potato and molasses bread by the loaf to the socially distanced faithful. New restaurants seemed less vital to visit than old favourites (who you wanted to support to stay around); and hygiene and location became much stronger considerations. As a writer, long form blogging started to seem unjust when the hospitality industry was struggling to stay afloat. Over the course of the pandemic I switched to writing short form posts and put the camera down to just use iPhone snaps across my various social media channels, noting where I observed strong COVIDSafe procedures in place. In this manner, across 2020, Does My Bomb Look Big In This? covered 136 different venues ( down 40% on 2019 ) in 45 different Sydney suburbs ( down 38% on 2019 ) with 32 regional visits ( down 40% on 2019 ). These meals involved 30 different cuisines ( down 19% on 2019 ). Paste Thai Food Australia got me reinvigorated about Thai food, so I ate it more often, with other notable meals at Soi 25 and Long Chim . This bumped Thai cuisine up into my year’s most eaten list alongside modern Australian, Japanese, Chinese and Korean. Two cuisines I ate a lot that didn’t quite make the top five were Sri Lankan (check out Colombo Social or The Fold ) and Filipino ( Sydney Cebu Lechon was an easy favourite). While I didn’t eat a huge amount of Italian this year, not one but three restaurants delivered meals that join Paste Thai in my top ten. They are Capriccio , La Disfidia (with the famous Danny Russo in the kitchen on the night I dined) and Osteria di Russo & Russo . In the regions I had three great experiences this year. Yellowtail in Terrigal delivered the best bang for buck with a $49 Asian-inspired multi-course feast. Burnt Honey Bakery set opposite Copacabana beach demonstrated just how creative you can get with the breakfast pastry; while Melba’s Bakehouse and Eatery in Wagga Wagga revolutionised baked beans. At the fancy end of town, Kuro’s Bar & Dining won battle omakase for me, edging out Tetsuya’s and Kuon Omakase by their use of innovation. Mid-range, it was Restaurant Plage who cooked at the top of their game on the night I visited, with a notable mention to Beijing Impression for their duck. Finally, in terms of comfort food, Polish Place in Glebe produced a bang-up dinner centred around the bounty of the pig, which seems an appropriate way to round out my 2020 - Best of Does My Bomb Look Big In This? as we enter ham season. Thanks for your readership Tags: best of , food news 1 comment Leave a comment Share Flag Link Review - Son of a Baker May. 10th, 2020 at 4:51 PM missdissent With the restaurant and café restrictions, my dining adventures have been seriously curtailed. Attempting to find a non-crowded beach for er… exercise… gave me the opportunity to swing by Son of a Baker for a post-swim snack. This attractive beach-front bakery café is owned by Roman Urosevski . Despite the location in a suburban grouping of shops that has a corner store vibe, it’s tarted up with some monumental grandeur via a marble and glass front counter, home to a stylish matte white coffee machine. Normally full of pale timber tables and seating, everything is currently neatly stacked away, awaiting orders that we’re once again safe to eat in. While the boast on the box sets out that the foodstuffs contained within are better than his father’s, it’s clear with the Macedonian burek featured prominently in the glass counter, that Roman hasn’t deviated too far from his Alexander’s Bakery roots. Visiting close to Easter, we picked up half a dozen Hot Cross Buns ($12.50/6) that were enjoyable, though not quite as well balanced as those from my local favourite, Penny Fours . The disassembled interior or the bakery café has created space for racks of baking, though with open bifold windows letting in the beach air, they’re also unfortunately bringing in the flies. From a cursory examination, Son of a Baker seem to specialise in croissants and cronuts, creating new-school flavours using fillings, garnishes, adapting their core pastry with some non-traditional coconut oil to make it vegan friendly. Leaving aside golden pastries stuffed with Nutella, crunchy peanut butter and raspberry jam, and red velvet, I hit up a Custard Croissant ($6.50) as I’d never seen one before. I’m still not quite convinced that an interior of thick custard and coconut oil (rather than butter) does the usually flaky pastry any favours. Dotted with fresh berries, the Custard Cronut ($6.50) was a much tastier endeavour. In this pastry treat, the custard offsets the richness of the doughnut-style, deep-fried pastry, balanced out with some bright berry sharpness. It’s tasty enough to make me consider revisiting for their signature lobster tail Benedict when proper dining adventures can be resumed. Son of a Baker 301 The Grand Parade, Sans Souci Ph: (0455) 455 456 Tags: food Leave a comment Share Flag Link Food News - Chao Catering May. 4th, 2020 at 8:10 PM missdissent If you’re into food, you’re probably well aware that the COVID-19 pandemic has taken away many of Sydney’s great dining pleasures. At the same time, it has also shown just how innovative and adaptive our restaurants, bars, cafes, pubs, food trucks and food and drink businesses can be. For many businesses it has been a rapid shift in focus, from dine-in to delivery, and from making entrees and mains, to creating video content that allows us to cook dishes at home alongside the likes of Colin Fassnidge and his darling daughters. Event caterers, Chao Catering , have made the jump from boardroom catering to DIY meal kits that allow you to recreate Vietnamese classics in your home kitchen. Chao Catering is a sister act, combining the skills and talents of Emma Nguyen , of I Love Pho in Crows Nest, with those of her sister, Jessica Nguyen , who operates La Sen in Randwick. Their clever DIY Packs ($55/4 people) give you the option of making a restaurant-standard pho (Vietnamese noodle soup) or a vermicelli noodle salad, in less than 15 minutes. I tried out a custom two-person-sized version of both kits and found it hard to pick a favourite. Maybe the crisp spring rolls pushed the vermicelli noodle salad slightly ahead (in my humble estimation)... hard to say, but it definitely tasted like a bought one! Each kit is presented in a cardboard tray with a little white menu card. Inside the tray you’ll all the vacuum-packed ingredients you need to make the dish, from the aromatic broth for your pho, to the sauces (hoisin and a very lively sriracha) you season the soup with at the end. You just take to them with scissors and follow the simple reheating instructions that use a stovetop pot and the microwave. The inclusion of so many fresh ingredients, gathered for you and portioned correctly by the Nguyen sisters, makes for a very easy assembly. Just pile the fresh ingredients so they look like the pho you’ve eaten in Vietnamese restaurants...